


Rub Down

by roseveare



Category: One Piece
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 02:57:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3365153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseveare/pseuds/roseveare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the encounter with Aokiji, Luffy is secretly working on new techniques that strain his body. Zoro notices something's amiss and concocts a plan to ease his captain's pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rub Down

**Author's Note:**

> *forcibly inserts space into canon between Aokiji and Water 7* It's there! It is! *denial denial denial la la la* From the op_fanforall on livejournal. A massage fic was requested. Technically it's a massage fic, sandwiched in between hijinks and adventures. Somewhat of a challenge to self because such subject matter is not my usual.

He noticed it first in a strange, still moment, amid the panic and bustle of Nami ordering them about as they guided the _Merry_ through rough seas. One moment Luffy was dashing across the ship with his mouth wide in a fierce grin of exertion, the next a huge wave shook them violently and he was forced to grab at the mast with a flailing rubber arm to prevent himself being tipped overboard. Luffy's back arched, his limbs snapped back, and Zoro saw his wide mouth twist in shock... in _pain_. Then, the wave had passed and he was left holding onto the mast with both hands, body sagging forward.

Luffy lifted his head, saw Zoro, and fixed his face into a grin. He shook himself and turned away. Yelled to Usopp and launched off from the mast to rejoin the frenetic activity around them.

Zoro stared after him until Nami smacked him on the head with a dismembered piece of her clima-tact and yelled at him for idling.

It was... _weird_ , that was all. Luffy, just now... he hadn't been burned, frozen or cut. That had merely been indirect force, which might've jarred a normal person a bit, but certainly shouldn't trouble someone with a body made of rubber.

Zoro knew what pain looked like on his captain.

He puzzled over it until he was reamed out by Nami again for not paying attention and got so mad that he snapped the rope he'd been holding and almost capsized them. 

So it wasn't on his mind any more, later, as he walked below... but it returned swiftly to the fore when he found Luffy curled against a wall, arching and contorting himself as though trying to rub impossible knots from his back. 

Zoro stopped dead, and Luffy evidently heard the fall of his boot, because he looked up and broke out an expression of mirth. "... _Itches_ ," he said, squirming his shoulders against the boards.

"You'll give yourself splinters," Zoro commented, and when he didn't stop, intervened: "Oi -- _oi_ , let me have a look at your back."

He gripped a thin shoulder, twisting his captain around and scrunching the shirt up into his armpits before the idiot could fight him. But, no. There wasn't a mark on the skin underneath. It was tanned and smooth, and the injury he'd suspected Luffy of hiding was nowhere in sight.

Zoro covered by lowering his mouth to the unblemished skin, and trailing his tongue from the hollow of Luffy's back, right up his spine to his neck, kissing it better. He tasted of salt and exertion, and squirmed under the treatment until he squirmed out of the hold altogether and turned and caught Zoro in retaliation, crushing their hips together. He claimed Zoro's mouth and as he deepened the kiss, hooked thin legs around him to draw him in.

It stuck in his mind afterward, those moments of looking at Luffy's face mid-exertion, and thinking something was different. Thinking that, yeah, they were both strong guys, probably were a bit rough generally because it didn't matter anyway when the other could take it.

But _pain_ still wasn't a usual part of their lovemaking.

After, they lay flopped in a pile, with Luffy still kind of wrapped around him in that limpet way, trying to ignore Nami's yelling through the door about the racket they'd made, and he couldn't cast the strangeness of it from his thoughts. Experimentally, Zoro squeezed his arms around the narrow part of Luffy's back, beneath jutting ribs that seemed to be jutting more prominently than usual.

Luffy was a limp, squashy, rubbery blanket, soft and warm and relaxed, but when his arms tightened, the flinch and _hiss_ were unmistakeable.

"Luffy," Zoro said. The wide eyes raised to his, a pout and a challenge sitting at the back of them. "Tell me. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Big fingers dug into the muscles of his abdomen, taking revenge. A thumb traced the rough edge of his chest's long scar.

"You're not sick or anything? You know a thing like that isn't something you should hide."

Luffy snorted and jabbed him in the stomach, making him "oof", then attacked his mouth with an enthusiasm that was clearly - since Luffy wasn't a much of a one for 'subtle' - _clearly_ intended to distract him.

"Zorooooo..." he gulped the words between kisses. "...Not sick..." Hands stroked over his forehead and down his face to grip his jaw. "...Not hurt..." A scruffy black head tucked into the crook of his neck and the smaller body snuggled into his, as though trying to climb inside his skin. "Stop _worrying_ , Zoro."

Zoro grunted and rolled them over, same as always, because rubber didn't get dead-leg from being slept on and was hell of a lot more comfortable as a pillow. He noted the sharp little intake of breath, but Luffy didn't say anything. Since he was so damn determined to be secretive about whatever was ailing him, neither did Zoro. Torturing it out of the idiot seemed an option...

He'd clearly underestimated his captain's stubbornness. Luffy didn't say anything all night, and if he slept uncomfortably for it, Zoro wasn't awake long enough to notice.

***

He forgot about it after that for several days -- mostly because Luffy was acting like Luffy, fooling around with Usopp and Chopper, rebounding unharmed from Sanji's kicks in retaliation of refrigerator raids and from Nami's regular annoyances. Whatever had been wrong, it clearly wasn't any more.

Once warned, though, he spotted it immediately the next time, the morning he got up and joined the others at the breakfast table only to see that stiffness in the set of Luffy's shoulders again. 

Nobody else seemed to be aware, everyone joking and sniping like always. Robin laughed behind her hand as Usopp and Chopper squabbled over a morsel while Luffy stole from the nearest plates in their distraction and got hit by Nami.

She had noticed his stealing, but not that Luffy hadn't stretched to steal from any of the further plates as he normally would.

Zoro slid into the remaining seat, his eyes on his captain. Luffy's posture was very straight and careful, and there was an unaccustomed distance in his eyes as he licked his fingers and pouted at his empty plate. Luffy had been on watch the latter half of the night, hadn't he? Maybe he was just tired, but Zoro didn't usually see him unduly tired after that duty -- especially considering the way every ounce of fatigue fell from him for mealtimes. Come to think of it, hadn't he stood a watch alone the last time that impossible stiffness and pain had been apparent in the set of his rubber body?

After the first instance, Zoro had finally written it off as some sort of delayed effect of the brush with Aokiji and getting frozen, but a second occurrence smashed that theory. What the hell was Luffy up to?

He thought about calling him on it then and there, but only for about half a second. Whatever Luffy was doing, that was up to him. Some weird kind of training... Who knew what training could damage muscles that should be able to take any amount of stretching and strain? Hell, he'd never even seen Luffy train, mostly assuming he didn't bother, just pulled new techniques out of his ass in the middle of a fight.

Maybe, then, it could be a good thing, a sign he was taking things more seriously. Probably it had been Aokiji that prompted the effort. Either way, it was Luffy's business, and _maybe_ Zoro would mention it... but it would be some other time, when they were both alone.

***

Later, Nami announced they were nearing a small island, in that way of hers that came right out of the blue. None of the rest of them had detected any signs they were approaching land, but sure enough as the day passed, they saw the thin strip appear on the horizon, interrupting the waves. 

It wasn't very big, a gloomy Autumn island of grey skies and drizzle. The crew of the fishing boat they hailed coming in told them (with nervous eyes to the Straw Hat Jolly Roger upon their mast) that the log pose would take four days to change.

Zoro caught Luffy eying the shore with a mix of apprehension and determination, which prompted a sharp double take, and when he looked back again, Luffy sucked at his thumb and returned the scrutiny with blankness, as if there hadn't just been calculation in his eyes.

Their arrival on the island got complicated because apparently the fishermen had put in further up the coast, dashing back over land to warn the townsfolk. That led to the irritating diversion of trying to persuade a mob of them that they didn't need the pitchforks and dusted-off weapons. It wasn't helped by the fading light and the way all the faces present reflected sinisterly by the lanterns and torches, or how all those naked flames surrounding the Going Merry had even normally un-aggressive Usopp on edge. That was one disaster could befall them too easily, despite outclassing these people in strength. 

Nami and Sanji half talked them down and then Luffy won them over in his Luffyish way; the one that went "That's your captain?" while the faces cleared and amusement lurked behind eyes that had previously held fear, and everyone present missed the point profoundly, because you'd not _seen_ Luffy, until you'd seen Luffy fight.

Whatever. They weren't run out of town, and nobody got hurt -- though they were fixing to, reacting to pirates like that slap-bang in the middle of a main route down the Grand Line. Zoro couldn't say much for their survival instincts. A bit more for their courage.

"Oi, Nami--" he started as they walked towards the town's single inn, where the navigator had reluctantly decided they should pay for rooms to mollify the townsfolk, because it was less threatening than shutting themselves up aboard their ship for four days.

"Yes, Zoro," she said with a huff, not waiting for him to finish. "I'll pay _extra_ to put you and Luffy in a room of your own." She ended on an intonation promising a demand for payback at some unspecified point in the future. 

"Thanks, Nami!" Luffy surprised her with a bouncy hug from behind, then hung off Zoro's waist like a real anchor, making him drag the idiot the rest of the way to the inn. 

The proprietor was about as thrilled as might be expected, given that he was still putting his shotgun away behind the bar when they came in. He got a bit happier when Nami took out the money, a bit less so when she started haggling.

Usopp and Chopper found a wooden board game on a table in a corner, and Sanji, Nami and Robin started ordering drinks. Zoro would've liked a drink too, but didn't get the opportunity, since he found himself lifted onto Luffy's shoulder soon as the proprietor clanked down three room keys. Luffy snatched a key from the counter, chanted a happy "seeya-later!" to the others, and ignored or stayed oblivious to the way the guy behind the bar looked even _less_ happy. They left the sour expression behind as he bounded up the stairs to their room. 

Zoro spit tatty black hair and writhed against Luffy's hand on his ass and generally felt like an idiot, growling curses as he was dropped on a (single. _Dammit_ , Nami) bed. "What the hell? I thought you were _tired_."

Luffy's grin was big enough to eat half the room. "Kinda tired. Not too tired for Zoro! Look at it, it's our own room! Nami can't come in and kick us and yell at us when we're in the middle of doing stuff!" He bounded around in a fast, excited exploration -- albeit one he evidently got bored of pretty quickly, because twenty seconds later he was back, pinning Zoro to the bed again. "Besides, I might be more tired _tomorrow_ , so we have to make the most of it _today_."

He was already fumbling at Zoro's pants, needy fingers less sure than usual, and there was still that weird stiffness infusing his movements, too, although the fervour in his eyes seemed determined to ignore it.

"Hey." Zoro stopped him by placing hands either side of his face, lifting up his head. Sometimes you had to enforce Luffy's attention. "We've got all night, idiot. Nobody wandering by to scare off with an eyeful. This once, we can take our time."

Luffy laughed - " _shishishi_!" - and his mouth dived down for a kiss, which was only really extended for so long as it was because Zoro fought back to enjoy the moment and slow down. But he could already tell that the message wouldn't go in. Luffy was hyped up to maximum speed, a thrum of energy shuddering within his body. Zoro was sure more than ever, in their present closeness, that that body was under unusual strain. Muscles flinched beneath his lightest touch as he slid his hands beneath Luffy's shirt. Running them up Luffy's sides, the ridges of ribs felt sharp under his fingers again.

"Are you sick?" He wasn't consciously intending to ask. It just came out.

Luffy laughed at him again. "No, I'm not sick, Zoro. Only sick of so many _annoying clothes_ on Zoro. Let's get rid of them!"

Without waiting for co-operation, Luffy decided to undress him speedily and violently, amid promises to show him how not-sick he was.

Zoro had already resigned himself to the fact Luffy was feeling alpha-male that night. Which meant that they would both be trying to hide how stiffly they were walking tomorrow.

***

He lost track of Luffy early on the next day. He had his training to do -- it was a rare chance to train on dry land and he wasn't much interested in what the rest of them got up to while he was occupied with that. Wasn't as though there was much on the island for them to get in trouble with anyway. 

He welcomed the seeming-perpetual thin drizzle. After all, training under favourable conditions all the time wouldn't help much, when weather and terrain couldn't be counted on when it came time to fight. 

His muscles were singing with exertion and satisfaction from his efforts when he worked his way back to the inn in the late afternoon -- via a somewhat circular route, goddamn rat-warren of streets in the town. When he found it, eventually, everyone else was already there except Usopp, still out in the rain working on repairing the ship, and one other notable absence. Cue Nami launching into an instant flap because Luffy wasn't with _him_.

"What? He can look after himself." Which might not be entirely true, but it was true enough, and why was he expected to be the one to hold Luffy's hand all the time just because they were lovers? They both had their own stuff to do. "There's nothing here except hills and sheep and fishing boats and rain." Mostly rain. Even Luffy couldn't drown in that, could he?

Nami went off again, and when his ears started ringing, even though he'd only just sat down, Zoro got up again because it was too damn noisy to stay. "Fine, then I'll look for him."

"Good! And both of you stop being so damn careless! The people here feel threatened enough by us already, without you guys showing off your freakish strength all over the place. Did you really have to weight lift with the _bull_ , Zoro?!"

...Eh, there'd been people around to watch that?

He heard her yelling desperately after him again as he was slouching away from the inn, but he didn't see why everything should be so big a deal. He was just gonna go look for Luffy, it wasn't like he'd really get lost doing that. It'd be dinnertime soon anyway, so their predictable captain and his bottomless stomach were probably already on their way. It was some kind of inbuilt sixth sense. Zoro didn't look back.

Out in the bay, a ship was just visible through the grey on the horizon. He couldn't work out the details of the flag, but the townsfolk were running about getting their pitchforks out again. Did they do that every other day?

Still, it wasn't his business, and he figured the others would notice when word reached the inn. 

Luffy, then.

Well, he couldn't see him, couldn't hear any specific disturbance amid the general disturbance (Luffy disturbances having a distinct sort of tune), so figured Luffy had gone outside the town. Zoro remembered that look of _intent_ his captain had as they approached the island yesterday. If training was what he was up to, what he'd been planning back then and last night, he'd need plenty of space to exercise that stretchy body and all its crazy moves. He'd been hellish secretive about it all, so even if it was arguable he'd think to keep it from sight of the town usually, he'd probably gone somewhere out of sight now.

Zoro headed off along the track that led up the big hill that overlooked the settlement. Once he reached the top, he could already see Luffy, a distant figure stumbling through the valley, distinct flash of red and blue. He was moving slowly, which was a source of instant alarm. Luffy seldom did anything slowly. Zoro quickened his own steps, heading down towards his captain.

Closer in -- and not that much closer, even -- he could see the pain in every line of Luffy's movements, despite the distance. At that point he couldn't help himself -- raised his arms and yelled, and Luffy looked up, waved and yelled back. Before his eyes, the stumbling steps became surer and the wavering body held straighter in a fiercely determined sort of way.

"What did you do to yourself?" Zoro asked, exasperated, as they got within range. Luffy looked like a drowned rat, although that was just the weather, and he probably looked the same himself. Luffy's returned grin wasn't quite a real grin.

" _Hungry_ ," he said, predictably. 

Zoro snorted. He set a hand on his captain's shoulder and felt the flinch beneath his palm, and while he _could_ just let him be, it bothered him to watch when every step shouted pain and Luffy's attempts to hide it were almost more painful still. Luffy was lousy at subterfuge. "Want a piggyback?"

Luffy blinked. For a moment, Zoro anticipated refusal, but then he found himself glomped in a huge hug, and Luffy started climbing up his body from there. That was kind of _ow_ , because he'd had a hard training session of his own and the rubber man was a hell of a lot heavier than he looked.

"Zoro's all _wet_." Rubber ankles squelched as they wrapped around his waist, arms around his shoulders. A chin nuzzled the top of Zoro's head, sending rivulets down from his sodden hair and into his eyes.

"Oi, _oi_..." His idiot captain only giggled at him and squeezed affectionately harder. Zoro grunted as his bones creaked. He turned to plod them both back, and fingers poked him insistently hard in the shoulder. "... _What_?" 

Luffy's arm waved in front of his face, pointed finger jabbing back behind them. "...Town's that way."

***

At the top of the hill, looking down onto the small town, they could see there were a couple of buildings on fire. Zoro frowned at the scene and watched the smoke rise into the air. The perpetual drizzle seemed only to mildly depress the flames. "Seems that other ship didn't think much to this town's warm welcome," he remarked.

"There was another ship?" Luffy had to be the only person he'd ever met with an audible blink. He started squirming. "Put me down, Zoro. People can't just come in and start burning houses! We should go help fight 'em off!"

Zoro let go a writhing rubber ankle, letting Luffy fall on his ass. He sprang up again, maybe a bit slower than normal. "Sure you're up to this? You look pretty beat."

"I'm good!" Luffy's knuckles crunched, then his fingers caught Zoro's haramaki, tugging as he started to run. Then they both were running side by side back down to the town. The slap of Luffy's sandals on the road was as regular as a drumbeat and the breaths hissing through his teeth didn't seem _too_ laboured.

They'd had stronger opponents, but then they'd also fought them a good deal fresher, so things evened out to a tough enough battle. Zoro ended up matched against the attacking pirates' captain, a guy who had some kind of squirrel devil fruit. Which, yeah, you wouldn't have thought that anything to brag about, but in practice the guy could _jump_ , and kept springing up the sides of buildings to evade attacks then launching back down on the offensive. Halfway through, Zoro managed to swap with Luffy for the swordsman with the weird serrated blades, and that resulted in a decidedly better match all around, as Luffy and the zoan bounced after each other up and down the street and the clash of steel split the air. 

Zoro had seen Nami and Usopp pitching in, so presumably Chopper, Robin and the crap-cook were somewhere about, too. He tried to keep an eye out. Not that he was worried about them...

Worrying about Luffy in a fight _wasn't_ a usual feeling, but knowing the condition he'd started out in, and not knowing all the factors behind that condition, Zoro couldn't help looking back over his shoulder, trying to make sure the idiot was still up and breathing. 

He did have to pay attention to his own skin, too, and so typically, he wasn't looking to Luffy when the noise of a painful rubber twang and a pain-filled yell dragged his attention back. By that time, the out of control pile of limbs was already rolling past him, skidding the last few feet across the rough surface of the road on hands and face. "Luffy!"

"Ugh." Hair straggling to shade his expression, Luffy tried to push himself up on his elbows and flopped back down. He tried again, this time almost reaching his feet.

A familiar soft noise from _there_ , of claw-tipped pads landing... Zoro's senses sang into high alert, and he spiralled, swords cutting up and slicing the very air before them, stopping squirrel-guy in his tracks before he could get to Luffy.

Hell, that had been close...

A strangled groan, this time, made him look back. Turning, he saw the enemy swordsman sagging on the end of an extended rubber arm wrapped around and around his throat. Luffy shook him, his face set to a surly frown, and the jagged swords hit the floor. A few moments later, the pirate followed them. Luffy's arm snapped back, his balance wavering as though the recoil hurt, and he almost keeled over. Somehow, he held to vertical, and drew in a rasping breath full of pain.

"...Eh, Zoro?" he said. "Shouldn't you pay more attention to your fights?" 

It forestalled Zoro's own demand of " _what the hell's the matter with you_?" Speechless, he stared as though he'd see what was wrong written under his captain's skin if he only looked hard enough, and got only a blank expression for reply.

Everyone else seemed to be wrapping up, townsfolk and the occasional glimpse of a nakama chasing down the last of the pirates, Usopp over there slingshotting water bombs to help a bunch of people trying to put out the fires. Chopper was probably helping with the wounded somewhere. Nami... _damn_...

Nami stamped over to them, clima-tact in hand, angry, sooty and smouldering -- literally. "Where the hell _were_ you guys?" she exploded. "Aren't you the ones who _like_ fights? A bunch of idiots show up _looking_ for a fight and the two of you are nowhere in sight?!"

Zoro felt a vein _twang_ in his forehead. "You sent me to look for--!"

She waved a hand and set the heel of her palm to her own forehead, wincing. "You two just... do what you do..." She stared down her body and cringed. "I need a bath. Idiots..."

Luffy exchanged a furtive glance with Zoro as she strode off, then following her path with his eyes, pointed out, "The inn didn't burn down."

Apparently not. 

"Yeah." Zoro slapped a hand on his shoulder, too tired and distracted to note whether or not it made him flinch. "Good idea. These guys have everything in hand. Let's grab some food from the kitchens and go to bed."

If he was going to address this, he figured, there probably wouldn't be a better time than now.

***

They stopped long enough to check in with Robin, to make sure everyone would know they were back and okay. Luffy ducked upstairs with armfuls of food while Zoro lingered -- with the presence of mind to snare a couple of items from Luffy's grasp as he went past, because there surely wasn't going to be anything left by the time he got up to their room.

As it happened, he was wrong. When he shut the door and turned around, Luffy was spread-eagled on his back on one of the beds, and only about half the food pile had been reduced to bones, wrappers and air.

Instantly, Zoro was ten times more concerned than he'd previously been.

He put down his own food, half eaten already since he didn't believe in giving Luffy any extra opportunities where his dinner was concerned, and sat on the edge of the bed next to a limp arm. Luffy grunted as the mattress shifted.

"Hurts to move from that position, huh?" Zoro poked him in the chin, prompting a mournful blink and pout. "Help you out?" He mercilessly grabbed, hauled, and rolled him over.

Luffy voiced a raw yell as he slid off the other side of the narrow bed with a thud. A moment later his scruffy head re-emerged, redecorated with a scowl. " _Dammit_. Zoro, you _asshole_."

"You bounce," he responded, unconcernedly. "Unless you want to tell me about this sudden new reason why you don't."

"I still bounce!" Luffy snapped with unusual ill temper. He cracked his shoulders and made a muffle squeak. Another sound followed, of frustration, the hands twisting around to rub at his back clearly not able to reach the places that hurt without more pain. Then, since he was upright again, he scrambled back for the food, and Zoro had to move fast to reclaim anything for himself. About ten seconds after that, the food was gone and Luffy burped and flopped face down on the bed, still muttering sullenly.

"You even supposed to get muscle aches and pains like normal people?" Zoro asked, eying him narrowly with greater interest, and deciphered the replying grunt. "Huh."

Luffy edged himself up far enough to rest his chin on his folded arms, bad mood fading a little. "Trying to make some new techniques," he muttered into his arms. "Stupid body's not used to 'em yet. That's all. Soon it will be!" he added fiercely.

"Hurts?" Zoro sank down next to him again, and Luffy stiffened and eyed him warily. "Where?"

" _Everywhere_ ," he sulked, with an obvious resentment for life on normal peoples' terms. Zoro hid a smirk behind a cough.

"Here?" The moment he placed his hands on his captain's shoulders, Luffy was struggling against him.

"Ow, ow, ow! Dammit, Zoro! Get off! It hurts, I said! It hurts! What the hell are you doing?!"

"Stay still." Hooking his knees over the small of a skinny back, he leaned gently over Luffy's shoulders and, using palms and thumbs, rubbed into the muscle cautiously through the cloth of his shirt. "Hell, I've done this for Nami before now. I've done this for the _shit-cook_. Gets knots in his leg muscles like you wouldn't believe. Never thought you'd need it, though." 

"Done what?" Luffy was still wriggling and showing no signs of intending to give it up. "Stop _poking_ me."

"A little rub-down. For when your body's been working too hard and everything gets tensed up and sore." Zoro shrugged and ran one of his hands lightly up the back of Luffy's neck, mussing his hair fondly at the end. "It could help."

"You're poking me, and it hurts," Luffy sulked. "Get off and let me go to sleep."

"You'll feel it worse in the morning if you go to sleep like this." They could have both used a damn bath to relax, as well as get clean, but Zoro could hear running water and knew from long experience that nobody was going to pry Nami out of there for hours. He shifted enough to get a hold of the bottom of Luffy's shirt, starting to tug it up. Hell, you could count his ribs and probably play a tune on them too. This and he'd just eaten enough to feed a man for a week. What kind of technique burned energy like that...? "Come on, I'll be gentle with you. You can tell me if it hurts. So help me get this off and stop being so damn chicken." 

In reply to _that_ , he received a derisive snort and the shirt was grabbed from him, tugged over Luffy's head and flung out onto the floor in challenge. " _Not scared_. Don't see the point of poking stuff that already hurts. It's stupid, and stop laughing at me. Bastard."

"There." Zoro flattened his palms to Luffy's back and ran them up and down like that, just a few times but enough to start to feel the skin grow warm from the friction, losing the chill of the cold and damp outside. "Like this... how's this? Think you can survive a little bit?" He leaned over far enough to rub the tops of thin shoulders and blow breath playfully into black hair to gain his lover's attention, since it seemed to be drifting.

"Ungh. Yeah," Luffy mumbled. "You can do some more of that."

"You're just made of iron," Zoro commented wryly. He backed up and slid his hands underneath Luffy's belly, unfastening his shorts with difficulty before starting to inch those off too. Luffy chewed his own arm and snickered, making life difficult by lying there like a rock. Dammit, not like Zoro wasn't tired, too! He narrowed his eyes and hooked a sandal strap, tweaking the grubby footwear aside. He brushed fingers across the sole of a bare foot and timed his move with the flail that resulted -- dragging off shorts and underwear and the remaining sandal all at the same time. Finally, he was left with a naked Luffy for his troubles.

As usual, he found himself thinking that the thin body didn't look like it could contain all that strength. There were few visible signs of prominent musculature or muscle tone, just an annoyingly skinny kid. He'd wondered before how rubbery, undersized muscles managed to do all the things he'd seen Luffy do.

He reclaimed the foot he'd held moments before. Its toes wriggled at him, and Luffy warned, with an edge that suggested he meant it, "Don't tickle me again."

"I won't." He held the foot, sliding his hands over it too firmly to tickle, ignoring the graze on the side of it since that seemed to be the approach of its owner. "Feet hurting too, right?"

"It all... _aches_ ," Luffy said, with complaint. Zoro, who had seen his captain absorb heavy damage without a flinch, could see this really wasn't a type of pain he was used to. 

"You can always stop practising these new techniques."

He was quiet a moment, as Zoro kept rubbing, sliding his thumbs into the angles of the foot. "No I need them. So I can't stop. I need them to work. It's just... so hard..." His voice was taking on a glazed quality as he spoke. Considering they functioned largely as his weapons, Luffy had absurdly sensitive feet. Zoro knew that, though he more routinely used it for tormenting purposes... He'd figured that was where to start if he wanted to make Luffy relax. 

The skin under Zoro's touch felt too loose, stretching with his fingers when he misjudged the angle or applied too much pressure -- and all right, it was hardly as though he'd never been in a position to pay close attention to Luffy's skin before, but this was a different sort of focus.

Curiosity and a sense of duty driving him, because otherwise he knew that for both of them he could've played with Luffy's feet for hours, he left the foot behind and moved on to an ankle joint that crunched and shifted under his grasp, making its owner groan hollowly. "Shh," he soothed, warming the joint between his hands until the noises he drew were almost contented. Just rubbing the surface of the skin between his palms, he worked his way up Luffy's calf, feeling the tension knotted into the large muscle there, and drawing more groans as he worked into it. He hadn't been quite sure how to go about doing this to a rubber body, which should give with every touch, unaffected, but Luffy's body seemed to be responding much like any other, so long as he was careful. 

The knee joint crackled as much as the ankle had, as though the complex mechanics of the bones there had been stressed severely. Moving up the thigh, Zoro could feel tense muscles relaxing under his hands as he worked, and feel the tremors of strain that infused them slowly ebbing away.

"My legs feel warm," Luffy mumbled, as Zoro crawled up his body a second time, working his way up the next limb. "But warm in a good way. Happy warm. Don't stop. Happy..." 

Zoro lifted his hands lightly from a thigh that was apparently now feeling well enough to jiggle at him naughtily -- "Stay still" being a doomed instruction so far as Luffy was concerned -- and turned his attention a little higher. Slid his hands over rounded flesh that he probably normally paid a _little_ more attention than many areas of his lover's body and paused. "Do you know you've been stabbed in the buttock?" The small puncture wound was hiding out in the crease of his thigh.

"'S not stabbed. Landed in a tree. Doesn't hurt much, anyway."

"All right." Zoro just avoided contact with the puncture, rubbing his hands across the terrain of Luffy's buttocks. He wasn't looking to become too distracted, and moved on as briskly as seemed reasonable, to Luffy's back once more, where he fascinated himself with the way he was able to make his 'victim' arch and keen under his touch. The worrying papery crackling of his rib cage at least seemed to lessen the more he worked, too. "That good, huh?" 

"Zoro's hands feel nice," Luffy murmured. "C'mere. C'mere, hands." He contorted, reaching back, until Zoro read his mind and surrendered a sword-callused hand. Luffy kissed and licked at the palm, sucking a finger into his mouth. "Still taste of meat, too."

"I figured I could win you over." Zoro laughed wryly. "I need to steal your arm, now." He lifted the other one clear of being Luffy's chin rest and drew both arms backwards, straightening them by his sides. He straddled his knees across Luffy's thighs, and starting with his hands on thin shoulders, glided them down along both arms. Luffy nuzzled the blankets and made hypnotic, satisfied small noises. Those begun to lull Zoro into a kind of trance, accompaniment to the rhythmic movements of his caresses. He let his hands wander upwards occasionally to brush over the back of his lover's neck, dragging through hair, pressing into his scalp. It had no real purpose to helping the aches, but every time he did that he felt Luffy shiver under the touch and intake a shaky breath that sent a matching shiver down his own spine. 

Leaning forward, almost to the point of covering the smaller body with his, he planted a soft kiss on the back of Luffy's neck, in that shivery spot. "Okay if I'm a little less gentle now?"

"Sure." He could hear the dazed blur in the words.

This could be more difficult, so hoping the properties of Luffy's rubber physique would allow, he tightened his hands on the tops of Luffy's shoulders, applying more pressure this time. It drew out a long groan but no complaint. Like he'd feared, this was where it started to be a real pain that his captain was made of freakin' rubber, and at the moment freakin' relaxed rubber. Half the time the flesh gave too easily, taking the pressure and springing back. Didn't help either that the mattress was really too soft a surface to do this on. 

Zoro moved down, sliding hands in circular motions around the long muscles either side of the spine. Luffy made little noises every time the heels of his hands dug in, tiny grunts that were starting to go straight to Zoro's groin. He'd not been prepared for this to feel so intimate. Just a willing chore, like they'd been shown at the dojo to help out their fellows in training, like he'd done for Nami or Sanji. A way to make Luffy feel better and relax some of that tight-wound-up pain from his unaccustomed body.

While neither of them were in any condition for sex, his chin sliding down Luffy's back turned to his tongue sliding back up it, tasting salt, blood and dust, and that sure as hell wouldn't have happened with Nami or Sanji... 

Luffy caught him out, unexpectedly wriggling underneath him and half elbowing him in the jaw as he squirmed around suddenly, pinning him directly with those wide eyes. "This side? This side now? I want to watch. Watching blankets is boring, even if your hands are nice. Can you do it this side?"

"Hurting less, eh?" Zoro grabbed Luffy's arms at the wrists as they got in the way, and was a little surprised as he let himself be pushed back, arms pinned into the hollows the pressure created in the mattress. Sly hips rose, though, rubbing insistently. Zoro gave a half-laugh, half-cough, and slid a hand between their bodies, applying pressure firmly to the pit of the stomach until Luffy's body flattened again with a _flump_. "Behave yourself. I'm the one doing the rubbing, here, and I'm not finished yet. The more you relax, the less the pain. You want it to hurt less, right?"

"Okay, Zoro." His head rolled back, looking... distracted, in probably the wrong way. Luffy was too damn tactile... Huh. Like he was one to speak. Well, they could always jerk each other off later. Meantime, better make the most of what was left to be done for Luffy, since he was clearly reaching the end of his limited attention span.

Zoro edged around to one side and lifted Luffy's arm from the shoulder. "Watch, then." He slid his hands over the whole limb this time, embracing the muscles with his fingers in smooth, curling movements, continuing under the gaze of curious eyes. Like his other joints, Luffy's elbow _clunked_ between his palms. "You made a real mess of yourself, whatever you're doing. Hell if I know how even you can manage to do this to a body made of rubber."

"Ehhh, you'll find out when it works!" Luffy chuckled. "If it works, then it doesn't matter!"

Wasn't an argument Zoro could take issue with, so he moved across Luffy's shoulders and chest from the front, encountering fierce squirming and giggles as he met the ticklish spot under the ribs, and then onto the other arm, gliding down to fingers sticky with meat juice and truncating abruptly in the middle of a bloody thumb. 

"What's this?" He turned it from the base, examining the small wound as Luffy grunted sharply. "Looks like teeth marks. You got bit?" He grimaced as Luffy tried to pull his hand back and the scab tore, blood welling. "Shit, that's deep! Looks like it goes all the way down to the bone."

"Heheh." A note of awkwardness to the way his captain shifted under him, reaching up with his other hand to unhook Zoro's grip and reclaim the injured digit. "That? It's nothing." He stuck the thumb into his mouth and sucked on it. Muffled: "Nothing at all."

There was... an oddness, there, infusing the moment. Any hint of Luffy being secretive and sly was enough, of course, to be very odd.

Zoro couldn't help but notice, before lips closed over the bloody mark, that the white teeth glittering in Luffy's own mouth were a perfect match for the indentations of the wound. 

"Are we done?" Luffy said, the chirpy alertness as he was already squirming away plenty of confirmation that he was feeling better now and already considered they _were_ done. Zoro nodded and rose stiffly, unable to keep a groan of his own from escaping. All this twisting and contorting to attend to Luffy after training and the fight hadn't done any favours for his own body.

A canny, bright spark lit Luffy's eyes suddenly, setting that familiar jab of pure terror shooting into Zoro's heart. A fear never more profound than when followed by the line that came next... 

"Aaah, Zoroooooo! I've an _idea_!"

***

Nami caught him walking stiffly the next morning, rolled her eyes, snorted and placed her hands on her hips. "Either you trained yourself half incapable again or I don't want to know what you and Luffy got up to in the room that I paid for."

"It's not _like_ that," Zoro protested, back crunching as he tried to turn to address her and his whole body was jarred by an agony that almost dropped him where he stood. "Gyah! _Shit_." He didn't think he'd ever _been_ in so much pain.

"Oh?" Nami raised an eyebrow archly. "So, if it's not like that, what is it like?"

"Goddamn Luffy..." His arms _screamed_ at him as he convulsively clenched his hands into fists. "...Luffy... ah! ...Luffy decided to give me a massage."

Nami's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates while her mouth shrunk to a tiny round 'o'. 

" _Luffy_ did this to you?"

"He's... _really_... sorry," he grit the words through his teeth. "He was _trying_ to help."

Zoro started to stagger away from her, his tortured knees creaking like an old man's with every awful, agony-infused shuffle. Dammit, dammit, _dammit_... What the hell had he been thinking, deciding to give Luffy of all people a massage? 

Above all things, he should have _remembered_ how generously Luffy liked to reciprocate in the bedroom.

 

END


End file.
